At the grand old age of 50 I've decided to take up Linux (mainly cos of my dislike for MS). I've just installed Mandrake 9.1 and everything is working spot on except for my modem. I have a PCTel HSP56 MR modem in. My ethernet card is being recognised. When trying to set up my net connection I get the message "/etc/resolv.conf missing or can't be read" - now I have to admit I ain't got a clue what this means or how to fix it, I mean, I know it's a file but that's my limit. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance

"grand old age", uh? *chuckle*, I ain't far behind you, *sniffle*...

found this link: http://pctelcompdb.sourceforge.net/display.php note the second item in the listing appears to be your modem and states that it works with this driver: http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/pcte...l-0.9.6.tar.gz

getting this working will be a satisfying learning experience and fun to boot!

ps: don't worry about the /etc/resolv.conf thing at this point, it's purpose is to point the system to somewhere where it can resolve host names, take a look at your /etc/hosts file for local name resolution if you like. for internet name resolution you'll need the ip of a dns server and if you're using dialup internet that's going to be your provider's nameserver and should be set up for you when you dial-in.

thanks for the links man, I have the driver tar file and unzipped it. Unfortunately I don't really know how to instal/configure it. I've tried to suss it out from other things I've found in the forums but to be honest it's all a bit of a mystery to me at this stage - you just get too lazy using Windows and never bother trying to suss out how things work. I really want to go down this path to get my brain activated again. If anyone can explain it in simple terms (think 'thick', lol) I'll be most grateful, thanks.
scag

Just so's we're on the same page here, after re-reading your original post, I'm not sure I understood you completely: your problem is with your modem and dialing up your isp? or is your problem is with your networking?

as far as the modem driver source goes, (and this will become a familiar routine if you download very much source) go to a terminal window, eg: start Konsole, and become root by typing su, then your root password (no characters will echo, this is normal). Then, cd to the directory you unzipped, as an aside, I like to unpack these kinds of things under /usr/local/src, this isn't necessarily a convention, but it's a good idea to keep all your "locally" compiled source directories somewhere together, after a while it's hard to remember, especially at your age, what was part of the distro and what was added by you . Anyway, after the cd you'll want to type ls to see if there's a readme or installation instructions file, this should always be your first step in order to understand how the developers intend for you to build the source and see if there are any issues specific to your platform. I could go on and give you the rest of the commands as I have downloaded this source and compiled it, (just to see if there's any "gotcha's"), but then that would ruin a valuable learning experience . It compiled fine on my mandrake 9.0 installation, of course if you get any errors, post and we'll fix them.

Well I got as far as insmod pctel but came up against this -:
'The module you are trying to load (lib/module/2.4.21-013 mdk/misc/pctel.0) was compiled with a gcc version 2 comiler while the kernel you are running wsa compiled with a gcc version 3. This is known not to work.
Contact your module supplier - only they can help you.
Now I have a vague idea what that means but no ideas about how to go about solving the prob. I really need some help now - (I'm actually really pleased that I managed to get as far as this)
Any ideas??

just ignore this post - I thought I had something to add but when I read it back to myself it was meaningless - I reckon an early night is needed, c'ya later

I used 'insmod -f ptserial' and 'insmod -f pctel' in super user mode to force the module installs. The messages log seems to show a successful install. Now I can't find the modem with MCC.

Scagman, I have a couple of questions for you, and indeed you have done well if you've got the module compiled and installed:

1. how did you end up with a module named pctel.O (note the capital rather than lowercase "O"), or is that a typo and it's actually "pctel.o"? or is this a module from an .rpm file?
2. can you type "/usr/bin/gcc -version", (no quotes) at the console and post the response?
3. if you compiled the driver yourself, how did it go?

fish:
can you try using modprobe, rather than insmod, modprobe should be able to pull in any other modules which are needed as well, insmod just inserts the one module. make sure you modprobe -r the existing inserted module first.

it's a typo (I think - I'll have to check) Once a sat down and stared at the screen for a while - and with help from the forum - I finally sussed out how ./configure etc worked. I just need to work out how to get the damn thing right now -lol- I'll get back to you tomorrow night and let you know how it goes. Thanks to everyone for all the advice etc

This is now driving me crazy, I've been goin' 'round in circles trying to load this bloody driver. I really wanna sort it out now - even tho' I intend to buy a proper modem pretty damn soon. I'm still getting errors - everything appears ok until I try insmod pctel and insmod ptserial. Then I'm getting the module you are trying to load is compiled with a gcc version 3 compiler2 etc etc. Now this means little to me so any help will be gratefully received. Thanks

You may need/ want to recompile your kernel. I ran into the same problem and am currently working on trying to reconfigure the kernel.

My God!! recompile the kernel? I'm struggling as it is just trying to load a driver - I'm sorry to say that I'm more of a point and click man and it's hard to break the microsoft habit,lol. At least I'm actually learning something this way.
I'll check out the help sites, faqs etc and give it a go and then I'll get back to let you know how I got on

Well, if all else fails consult the source.... Here's what I found:
http://pctelcompdb.sourceforge.net/v...s.php?id_no=60
before jumping on that link, let me boil it down for you: basically, that guy got the same error, so he used insmod -f pctel.o instead of plain insmod, it forces the module to be loaded regardless of warnings. he says it works, he doesn't seem to mention whether you need to do this with the ptserial or not, but if it complains about ptserial, then use insmod -f on that also. hope this helps.

ps: here's another link which will help you to make this a permanent change if it works for you:
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/gcc3.html

thanks again, I'll give it a go - thanks for links. I'm determined to get this sorted then I'm gonna go out and buy me a modem, lol. I've certainly learnt a lot this past week.

Back again. It appeared to work - I cheered - my modem still wasn't recognised - I wept buckets!!
I've tried everything but still nothing seems to get the bloody thing ringin'. Any more ideas? please